Stage Eleven: Exaltation
Somewhere in the wilderness…
She nearly forgot who she was until Jill Valentine saved her life. Not with a team and her brother. Not with a weapons and bombs and bravery. She saved her life with antibodies. With blood. Without meaning to, she stepped into Claire's shoes and broke her free of the bonds that tied her to the monster that haunted her bed and her dreams.
Claire Redfield was often the type of woman who could be found at the right hand of charity work. She was, by turns, a philanthropist and a volunteer. She donated her time to the cause of eradicating bioterrorism from the world, not by fighting, but by helping repair the damage when the fight went wrong.
In this moment, she was sitting at a long table. She was dressed in a white satin. She wore her hair in curls around her pretty pale shoulders. She sat while the other three people at the table enjoyed dinner together.
There was the former Captain that had betrayed his team to death and become some kind of subhuman monster mutated by various strains of infection and given him a god complex. There was his disgusting minion who was somehow so very handsome that enjoyed torture porn and making art from the destruction of the human body and his van dyke beard and piercing blue eyes. And the third member of their little dinner party; another handsome man with silver hair and a little scar above one striking eye.
On the walls…oh my god…on the walls were humans. Maybe. Maybe they were humans. They were twisted, tortured, torn and broken bodies. They had died painfully. Was it too much to hope they'd been dead before they'd been…taken apart? They were Frankenstein in nature; stitched together and taped and glued and glittered. They were covered in glitter. Like a little girl with an art set had come along and dusted them in sparkles. A head, a leg, an arm with no fingers. A breast, a chest cavity opened to show a glitter painted heart sprayed with gold spray paint beneath, a necklace of fingers hung from the chandelier above the table. Blood ran down the walls in red washes liberally scattered with metallic paint and glitter. It was a horrid tableau of a macabre Broadway show. Terrifying in its sheer horror.
The man with the van dyke beard was stroking a listing girl on his lap. She was bleeding, badly, from her torn and mutilated shoulder and arm. The man with the beard was just…he was licking the blood like she was a lollipop. When the girl listed too far to one side, he slapped her face and brought her back awake to moan pitifully.
Wesker turned his attention to where she sat, watching them. He liked women to dress for dinner. He liked women to dress as women. So, she was wearing this stupid get up and waiting, waiting, for the moment to escape.
Wesker studied her and finally spoke, "Claire…you haven't heard the news. And we're being so rude by not sharing it with you."
Claire remained silently, watching them.
"I have acquired a beautiful and exciting specimen. I acquired her a few years back, of course, at the Spencer Estate but…well…I should thank you for letting me experiment on you with my drug. The failure of the drug to completely control you allowed me to make the necessary adjustments. The funding and ability to access what I needed in Africa had given me the other pieces. I didn't realize that I had the answer to one part of my eternal question all along…"
He rose and gestured to the door.
It opened and a woman in a beautiful blue gown emerged. She was ghost pale and ice blonde…and dead. She was dead.
Claire whispered it, "JILL!"
Amused, Wesker patted his knee. And Jill sat easily down on him. She looked like a little glassy eyed doll. She was empty. Her eyes were empty and sightless. She studied Claire without recognition.
"The drug I used on you is perfect now. It gives me the PERFECT control of her. I discovered that Jill has antibodies to the T-Virus. She's exquisite, isn't she? Just perfect. And priceless. Because she's given me what I need. Which means?"
He gestured a little and Alesio rose, grinning from ear to ear.
"It means you are expendable, my dear, dear girl. Expendable. I no longer need Birkin's spawn. I have all I need in this very room. I have Excella's money and influence. I have the partnership of another brilliant mind to distribute my gift to the flailing human world."
The silver haired man smiled smoothly and sipped his wine.
"This is Glenn Arias. He is a procurer of weapons for the wealthy and needed. He's a businessman who deals in bioorganic weapons. He has already aligned buyers for my creation. Through his assistance, my vision will become a new reality. I will save humanity from its pathetic descent into mediocrity. I will shower it with truth and beauty. I will preserve the last vestiges of a dying race. And I will rule that which survives the purification. Together? We guarantee complete, global saturation."
Arias said, quietly, "Albert, she seems superfluous in all of this. You collected her for a reason?"
"I had collected samples of the very dead William Birkin. Birkin and I, were old friends, and he lost his mind and injected himself with his own creation. I retrieved enough to create a simulation of G but I wanted a fresh sample. Before his death, William impregnated his own daughter with a G-embryo."
Alesio looked excited by the word impregnate.
Wesker patted his arm, "I'm afraid it was more clinical than that, my old friend. Sherry, the child, carries a very special blood type. She was ultimately cured but my sources confirm she is, potentially, the only BOW in existence successfully living with the G-Virus. I wanted her blood. And I wanted her. I was going to use her as my perfect soldier…until my beautiful Jill literally fell into my hands."
He stroked Jill absently, "Our dear friend, Claire, was one of the only people who knew her location. I have literally thousands in my employ and I couldn't get through the layers of security protecting her. As it turned out? I don't need her. Jill has everything I need. Jill IS everything I need. And Claire is no longer necessary. It's all well and good. I was remembering too clearly the pleasures of the mortal flesh. Soon I might have begun to process emotion again. The idea is horrifying."
Arias said, softly, "There are useful traits to feeling human, Albert. You don't hunger for children or normalcy? Ever?"
Wesker looked highly amused. "Ah. Glenn…how to explain the intricacy of what I do here? There is no need for children when you are a god. I will CREATE my children soon enough. Those who survive Uroboros will become mine. And I will be as a father to the new world."
What a fucking nut job. But Glenn Arias? He was nodding with reverence. And Alesio was watching Claire like a boy with an ice cream cone. Jesus.
Arias said, "Will the children be controllable, Albert? Imagine the possibility of weapons you can control not with constant injections…but with thought?"
Wesker was looking so eager. Like a kid in a candy store. "Glenn, GLENN…we will be good friends. I do so love a fertile mind."
Alesio drew their attention as the girl on his lap let out a shout of fear. He was using the steak knife in his hand to slice away a ribbon of flesh from her chest. She panicked. She fought back. And Alesio was thrilled.
He threw her on the table and rattled the dishes. Arias and Wesker stayed sitting there, watching almost boredly. Oh god, what kind of shit show was she in here!? Oh god. OH GOD.
Alesio stabbed the steak knife into the girls struggling belly. She squealed, bucking and fighting. Her ripped it free in a burst of blood. And he angled it at her groin.
Oh god.
Claire made a very bad mistake. She whispered, "Don't."
And they all looked at her now.
Alesio looked so happy. So, so happy. A kid in a candy store. A delighted child. A perverted monster.
He drove the knife into the screaming girl's groin. Once, twice, three, four times. Her screaming was so loud. So awful and loud. So terrible. Claire felt tears fill her eyes for her. What a horrible way to die. Eventually, she stopped screaming.
The blood was everywhere. It was all over the apron Alesio wore over his blue suit. It was all over the table. It had flecked on Wesker's glasses and Jill's dress and Arias' watch. And none of them cared. Wesker was smiling.
FREAK.
The girl on the table was dead or dying. PLEASE DEAD. Because Claire didn't want to think about what he would do to her when he carried her body away. But he wasn't going to do that. Not yet. Nope. He had other plans.
Alesio was moving toward her now.
Claire could feel the panic in her guts start to twist like snakes.
"Our guest is getting bored, Glenn. Should we let her play? Claire, as much as I'd love to keep playing with you, I'm afraid it really is unnecessary. But Alesio? He never tires of playing. He asked if he could have you. I love giving him gifts. He is so very….eager…to please me."
Claire shifted in her chair, vibrating.
"Tell me there's a reason to keep you whole…Claire. Tell me there's a reason to keep you…alive."
Jill, her brother's best friend, watched expressionlessly.
Claire waited, waited, and the moment Alesio was close enough…all six foot five and huge shoulders in a baby blue suit and a blood apron…she pushed her chair backward, rolled over, grabbed it and came up swinging. Chris would have been proud.
It smashed beautifully into the big man. It threw him off center.
And Claire turned to run through the heavy arched opening of the mansion. These psychos and mansions. Why was it always mansions? Did no one live in a farmhouse in the middle of nowhere!? (*cough*) Pyscho's loved castles and mansions.
What had Leon told her? Europe was ruined for him because of what had happened in Spain. Claire knew that she NEVER wanted to live in a mansion. EVER. Chris had nearly died in one…TWICE. Jill had died…or not. As she was alive!? She was dead!? What the fuck was she?
In the heavy dress, Claire was still fast. That happened when you'd been running for years. She ran for the far hallway and burst through the door. She could have tried to head out the front door but she knew…she KNEW…that there was no hope of getting away that easily. So she ran down the narrow hallway and found herself in the kitchen.
The laughter of Wesker's gross companion trailed after her. It was high pitched, it was girly, it was horrifying in conjunction with such a HUGE man. Alesio was massive in sheer girth. He was bigger than her brother. And there were few men ALIVE bigger in muscle than her brother. But Alesio had him beat in spades.
She did NOT want to find out what happened when he caught her.
Jill…Jill…she'd done nothing. She'd done nothing but sit there and smile like a doll. Jesus. The last time she'd seen Jill, she'd been playing foosball with Chris. Her short dark hair had been in a stubby ponytail and her curvy body encased in enough spandex that Claire had been envious of her ability to have the perfect hourglass figure. The weird doll sitting on Albert Wesker's lap wasn't Jill Valentine. Jill Valentine was mouthy and laughing and in love with her brother.
Of course, Chris was so stupid that he'd never figured it out.
THAT was not Jill Valentine.
How did she survive this?
The laughter rang around her like echoes in a silent room.
Jesus. JESUS.
Claire grabbed the biggest knife she could find on the butcher block and ran for the door beside the pantry. It was unlocked. And it spilled her into a large yard complete with beautiful fall trees in red, orange, yellow and green. Dead leaves crunched beneath her slippered feet as she ran across the wide-open courtyard.
There were trees in the distance. Where was she? She didn't know. She had no clue. She was in the middle of nowhere, trapped, lost…and alone. She burst into the tree line and she heard Wesker's voice chase her into the woods, "You can run, Claire…but you can't hide. A trite cliché it seems but useful. Alesio isn't much of a hunter, I'm afraid. But I have someone who IS. Jill? Go find our little rabbit please. We can't have her getting away."
And now he was sending her brother's best friend to kill her.
Claire tripped over a log but kept running. She kept on running. She ran through the woods in a ball gown while the ghost of Jill Valentine chased her.
And Claire thought, desperately, hopefully…that surely someone was coming. Someone was coming to save her. Right? Right? Someone was coming. Chris was coming. Leon was coming. Someone. ANYONE.
She was desperately afraid no one was coming. No one. And she was going to die in the woods at the hands of Wesker's puppet. Surely it was better, infinitely better, than dying AS his puppet. Surely that was better.
And yet, as the fear coursed through her, she realized it didn't matter. It didn't matter. Because either way? She'd be just as dead.
And there was no one coming to save her.
She was on her own.
